Here are the winners of Trump’s “Fake News Awards”

President Trump finally unveiled his much trumpeted “Fake News Awards” tonight after a long delay prompted by concerns that the entire endeavor might run afoul of federal ethics regulations. The administration got around the concerns by publishing the results of the decidedly non-scientific poll on a site controlled by the Republican National Committee and turning the whole affair into a fundraising exercise.

While the RNC site promptly crashed and made it impossible to see the winners, The Hill luckily accessed the info before the crash so we can give you the names of the lucky journalists and media outlets that made the grade.

Nobel prize winning economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman is the proud winner of the number one slot on what is essentially a commercialized version of Trump’s enemies list. The announcement cited Krugman’s economic prediction on the day that Trump won the presidency as the primary reason for his victory.

“The New York Times’ Paul Krugman claimed on the day of President Trump’s historic, landslide victory that the economy would never recover,” the “awards” statement said, before contrasting it with a chart of rising market indices since the election.

The President may regret this choice once the market bubble bursts, but let’s selfishly hope for our own sakes that the crash that comes won’t be worse than the Great recession that the last Republican president initiated.

Coming at number two is ABC News reporter Brian Ross, who was forced to correct a report that said that Trump directed an aide to make contact with Russian agents during the campaign, when it turned out that the action took place after Trump had already been elected. Stock markets fell on the report, Ross was suspended for his mistake, and in the end, news of Donald Trump Jr.’s, Michale Flynn’s, and George Papadopoulos’ contacts with Russian agents proved that the essence of Ross’s report was actually true.

The third slot goes to a cable news network rather than an individual with CNN winning for “FALSELY” reporting that Trump and his son Donald Jr. had access to hacked documents from WikiLeaks. CNN corrected that report in December, but until Robert Mueller completes his investigation many people will consider the jury still out on this one.

Time magazine earned a fourth place finish for its story that Trump had removed a bust of Martin Luther King Jr. from the Oval Office, but many suspect that the real reason for its inclusion is the failure to name Trump “Man Of The Year” for two years running.

Rounding out the winners in fifth place is The Washington Post cited for reporting that:

“the President’s massive sold-out rally in Pensacola, Florida was empty. Dishonest reporter showed picture of empty arena HOURS before crowd started pouring in.”

The reporter in this case apologized for his erroneous tweet, saying that he had been confused by images being sent by another Twitter user.

The runners up included Newsweek and a few more CNN references,  but most of Trump’s dreaded mainstream media managed at least a mention.

Sadly left out of the winner’s circle were all of the people who actually actively campaigned for inclusion as a badge of honor, Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, Samantha Bee, and other late night hosts were simply not considered fake newsy enough to make the grade. Better luck next time folks! Don’t stop trying!

Vinnie Longobardo

is the Managing Editor of Washington Press and a 35-year veteran of the TV, mobile, & internet industries, specializing in start-ups and the international media business. His passions are politics, music, and art.